NationStates Jolt Archive

I'm seeking comments and support on my UN proposal for a global energy currency. Please read it, propose amendments, and encourage your UN delegate to support the proposal. Thanks.

The Commonwealth of Bozochi

Humans : correct in making the leap from wealth as currency to wealth as energy. But logic failure : wealth ultimately is extension of desire, fluctuating with emotions and state of mind. Desires : when all are supported in purely adaptable system, true wealth is achieved.

Call me lazy, but it's easier to review if you summarize or paste the proposal here; otherwise we have to contend with the notorious server.

http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/page=UN_proposal1/match=energy%20currency

A Global Energy Currency

Category: Environmental; A resolution to increase the quality of the world's environment, at the expense of industry.
Industry Affected: All Businesses

Proposed by: Bozochi


Description: [This is a resolution to increase the quality of the world's environment, but only at the expense of energy-wasting industry, and to the great profit of energy-efficient industry.]

In recognition that energy is the "currency" of the natural world (energy is required for anything whatsoever to happen), and in recognition that humanity is not separate from the natural world, but indeed is a part of it, we propose the transition to energy-based currencies for all UN member nations, in order to harmonize the human economy with the natural economy.

The transition will be administered by the UN, and occurs as follows:

1. The total value of money in circulation in all member nations is calculated, and is divided by the total energy (electricity, fossil fuel, food, etc.), in joules, currently produced and available in member nations to decide a monetary per-joule energy rate.

2. All new primary energy production, harnessing, or extraction is reported monthly, in joules, to the UN by member nations. This energy production is taxed by the UN at the per-joule rate calculated above, and the costs passed along to the consumer, so that it is essentially a tax on energy consumption.

3. So the consumer can pay the increased cost of energy, the UN pays out the tax collected equally to each citizen of each member nation, as a monthly energy dividend representing democratic allocation of the new energy that has been harnessed for the use of humanity.

No member nation is required to take any special action regarding their monetary or energy policy.

The energy tax/dividend will be introduced at a very low rate, perhaps 1% of the target rate, and phased in over a long period to allow for graceful transition by the current member nation economies. The net effect, once this transition is complete, is that every unit of currency in circulation in member nations will always be backed by a fixed, already-produced, available amount of energy ready for consumption. Thus, energy use is accounted for automatically in all financial decisions.

This measure will spur increased energy production where needed, vastly increase market pressures driving energy-efficient technologies, and ensure a reasonable measure of economic equality without borrowing from future generations or sacrificing economic freedoms.


Approvals: 3 (Fireheart, Qaaolchoura, Bonerlind)

Status: Lacking Support (requires 130 more approvals)

Voting Ends: Tue Dec 16 2003

Humans : correct in making the leap from wealth as currency to wealth as energy. But logic failure : wealth ultimately is extension of desire, fluctuating with emotions and state of mind. Desires : when all are supported in purely adaptable system, true wealth is achieved.

There will always be desires in any system. Even if everyone's material needs are met, I could desire your girlfriend. Or your health. Or your happiness. Or maybe you can do complex integrals in your head. The fact is, there will always be envy and quiet desperation.

Not all men can be Caesar, and even if all men were, some would aspire to be God.

For example, I aspire to rule the world. But from the looks of things, that's probably not going to happen. Therefore, I will live with unfulfilled desires, what Thoreau would call quiet desperation, no matter what system I live in. Therefore, your argument that satisfying everyone's material needs would create happiness is just ludicrous.

Humans : correct in making the leap from wealth as currency to wealth as energy. But logic failure : wealth ultimately is extension of desire, fluctuating with emotions and state of mind. Desires : when all are supported in purely adaptable system, true wealth is achieved.

Agreed. Wealth is an extension of desire. My desire is to use energy as wealth. In fact, to me, energy IS wealth. Energy is food, produces materials for shelter, builds shelter, is stored as heat by shelter, powers every activity, and composes and orders all matter. Having energy makes you feel good. My desire is energy, and therefore I want my accounting system to represent energy. But, to use anything as money we need agreement... Anyone else?

Historically, money was created to represent tradable goods and labor (I prefer to lump those together and just say "trade value," but that term doesn't make sense to most people I've tried to explain it to). Why? Because direct trade of goods had some major flaws -- farmers had difficulty purchasing anything outside of harvest seasons and the like -- and so some smart person devised the concept of money. Instead of trading five bales of hay for a chicken, you could pay five gold pieces. The idea is that you don't have to cash in (trade) your work before it spoils; you can wait, it doesn't all have to happen at once.

Yes, the pricing I just used is completely arbitary and doesn't really make sense. Boo hoo. You get the point.

So. Who are some of the most powerful people in the world right now? Those who control our supply of fuel (oil). This proposal, as I understand it, would not only make these people the richest in the world, it would also make them the source of all money -- that's giving too much power to a small group, especially if that group is not necessarily the government.

All that aside, you can mint your money on whatever basis you desire. The real question is whether or not anyone thinks it's worth anything -- which is THEIR choice, not any government body's. There might well be some benefits to having a currency based off of energy, but I don't see justification to deprive every nation in the world of sovereignty over its own currency production and risk upsetting the entire world's ecnonomy just to have an unproven unified currency.

Historically, money was created to represent tradable goods and labor (I prefer to lump those together and just say "trade value," but that term doesn't make sense to most people I've tried to explain it to). Why? Because direct trade of goods had some major flaws -- farmers had difficulty purchasing anything outside of harvest seasons and the like -- and so some smart person devised the concept of money. Instead of trading five bales of hay for a chicken, you could pay five gold pieces. The idea is that you don't have to cash in (trade) your work before it spoils; you can wait, it doesn't all have to happen at once.

That smart person was the first banker (they were European goldsmiths in the 16th century). Money as a flexible medium of exchange is definitely a good idea.

So. Who are some of the most powerful people in the world right now? Those who control our supply of fuel (oil). This proposal, as I understand it, would not only make these people the richest in the world, it would also make them the source of all money -- that's giving too much power to a small group, especially if that group is not necessarily the government.

Two points:

1. Who controls world currency production right now? No, it's not the government. The central bank, which is nominally government controlled, prints paper currency out of nothing and loans it to the government. This only amounts to 5-10% of circulating money. The other 90-95% is created when a bank loans out depositors' money, allowing two people to use it at once. (I deposit $50, you borrow it from the bank to pay me. Now I have $100, even though only $50 ever "existed".) Inflation comes because all that money needs to be paid back plus interest, and there is no other source of money other than bank loan. The banks oblige and create the money needed to pay interest on their loans, unless they feel someone's borrowed enough, in which case they take their property. Who are the most powerful people in the world right now? Bankers. They control the oil, as well as a good share of everything else. (You could just as easily say that the oil companies control the banks -- it's the same thing. In any event, a small number of people control an inordinate amount of world resources.)

This is a good, if somewhat paranoid, summary of how this came to be: http://www.relfe.com/plus_5_.html

2. Oil contains an enormous amount of energy, which is rarely used efficiently in current applications. Under the energy currency plan, energy use is taxed by the joule, so most uses of oil and other fossil fuels become very expensive. Electric cars, for example, are far more energy efficient than internal combustion vehicles. Another example is electricity generation. It is far more efficient use of alread-captured energy to put up a windmill and let the wind spin it than to extract coal and burn it to heat a boiler. An energy currency would quickly lead to reduced emphasis on fossil fuels and intensified research and profit in renewables. This is an opportunity for those excluded from the oil wealth to get in on the fun.

All that aside, you can mint your money on whatever basis you desire. The real question is whether or not anyone thinks it's worth anything -- which is THEIR choice, not any government body's. There might well be some benefits to having a currency based off of energy, but I don't see justification to deprive every nation in the world of sovereignty over its own currency production and risk upsetting the entire world's ecnonomy just to have an unproven unified currency.

If you read carefully, this plan does not deprive any nation of their own currency, it only provides for a smooth transition to energy-backing for every currency. Every nation can conduct monetary policy as they wish, and as the value of their currency changes, so will the amount of tax they pay and dividends they receive. For example, if no banking reforms are introduced and inflation continues its perpetual creep upwards (which is a sort of stability, for the medium term), then the nation's currency will have a lower value, so the amount of tax they must pay is increased, but so are the dividends they receive per citizen.

Final note: "Unproven" is never a good argument for not trying something. Every idea is unproven until it's tried. That is why this energy tax/dividend is to be phased in very slowly to watch for unintended consequences and to allow for adjustments.

Thanks for the comments.

if you want a currency that measures REAL cost bennifit rations you might conseder the 'herg'. this is a quantification of 'happiness energy'.

energy equivelent currency does make environmental sense provided there is sufficient versimilitude in the actual indexing.

by energy currency i take this would be each unit of currency backed by and based upon a unit of energy such as the dyne or the watt

it is a concept with much to recomend it but by no means a cure all.

the unit of happiness energy on the other hand is something the cost of money and what it represents can and "would/should/could" be measured IN.

=^^=
.../\...

We could just use child labor as energy.
-The Armed Republic of Fallian
Telegrams C/O: FAQ NationStates

Wouldn't people be able to just make themselves richer by getting a few solar panels, or a wind turbine?

Wouldn't people be able to just make themselves richer by getting a few solar panels, or a wind turbine?

in a way and up to a point

and the problem with that is???

incentives are where it's at and if people are motivated to do that this is a good thing.

i suppose i need to study the proposal a little more but this is sounding good so far

=^^=
.../\...

Wouldn't people be able to just make themselves richer by getting a few solar panels, or a wind turbine?

You'd make everyone richer. (If you read the proposal, new currency is issued equally to all citizens based on the total amount of new energy produced.)

One important aspect of the energy tax is that high-energy fattening food contains more joules of energy and would therefore be more expensive than low energy food, encouraging a healthier diet and lowering health care expenses in member nations.